It’s been a busy old month at Chez Beckford. Between projects and challenges and the daily grind, it’s been hard to find a moment to sit down and record it all, but things are finally starting to slow down, so here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening. Running for MS research I mentioned in…
Tempus fugit to the max! I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked at the date of my last post and saw it was somewhere back in the foggy beginnings of March. Has it really been six weeks since I went to London? Surely not! There is something rather odd about how time moves…
It’s been a hot minute, but here we are, back to the basics of good old fashioned blog writing. No matter how many fancy new platforms I try, I always end up back at this place. Back on my self-hosted, self-controlled website; back to the roots of what words mean to me. Last year in…
I decided to take a couple of weeks away from the blog, not from a lack of ideas, but from a need to sit and think about some big concepts and feelings I am having about my work and about creativity in general. So, instead of finding words to describe all of these thoughts, I…
Over the past year, though, I have noticed a change. Call it a personal maturation, or a solidifying of something. I find I no longer feel the same joy of discovery in throwing everything at a page in a creative frenzy. I want to slow down. I want to finesse. I want to hone my technique. So, I have started to taking life drawing and portrait classes.
I almost wasn’t going to post anything this week. I’ve been dragging my heels, writing wise, over the past few days because of a whole bunch of life stuff that took up a lot of time. This means I have had little energy to sit down in front of the computer to put anything into type. But when I can’t write the best thing to do is dive into my sketchbook to get the creative juices going, so this morning I joined a couple of friends on zoom for a bit of sketchbook practice.
I have always considered myself pretty polyamorous when it comes to art media. Paints, pastels, markers, charcoal, pencils, ink: I have loved them all. I even flirt with a bit of collage from time to time. But I have never felt a particularly strong affection for one over the others…until now.
I like to run. It’s the one form of exercise that I consistently return to after falling off the taking-care-of-my-health wagon for the umpteenth time. I do not run fast. I do not take part in races (anymore) and my maximum distance is 15km. But I do really like to run. A couple of days ago, as I was plodding along in kilometre six of a ten kilometre trail, it suddenly occurred to me that running is a lot like writing or making art.
Last Friday I received an invitation from a friend in my weekly art group to join in Emma Carlisle’s 3rd Patreon birthday bash. This was a lovely suprise! I’ve followed Emma Carlisle for a while because I love her illustrative style and the way she presents her process. So, on Friday evening I sat at my desk, my Zoom app open and ready to go, and my trusty drawing kit close at hand. It’s been a while since I’ve done any sketching, so I was looking forward to seeing what we would do.